“An honest evening's grade: nothing loud, nothing missed by much.”
What this shows — how Ron Kulpa called the 155 pitches that were taken (no swing), graded against the tracked rulebook strike zone. He got 143 right. Below, only his misses are plotted, alongside every pitch the ABS (Automated Ball-Strike System) reviewed on a challenge.
The zone, as he called it
The calls that moved the game
- 1+0.69▼8 · 3-2 strike called ball
Troy Johnston vs JT Brubaker - 2+0.28▼5 · 1-2 strike called ball
Ezequiel Tovar vs Ryan Walker - 3-0.19▼5 · 2-0 ball called strike· challenged ✓
TJ Rumfield vs Matt Gage
Run impact from the count run-value table: a missed strike three is worth far more than one on 3-0.
ABS — the Automated Ball-Strike System
7 pitches went to the robots · 4 overturned (ump overruled) · 3 upheld (ump confirmed). This is the ABS system’s own measurement — Hawk-Eye optical ball-tracking, not our model.
- 1Bryce Eldridge — ump said strike, robot ruled ball: overturned.
- 2Drew Cavanaugh — ump said ball, robot ruled strike: overturned.
- 3Kyle Karros — ump said strike, robot ruled ball: overturned.
- 4Rafael Devers — ump said strike, robot ruled strike: upheld.
- 5Drew Cavanaugh — ump said ball, robot ruled ball: upheld.
- 6TJ Rumfield — ump said strike, robot ruled ball: overturned.
- 7Edouard Julien — ump said strike, robot ruled strike: upheld.
Our tracked-rulebook zone matched the ABS ruling on 7 of 7 — a zone-definition gap (ABS grades a standardized, height-based zone), not our error.